


You Can't Go Home Again

by kanadka



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22457212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/kanadka
Summary: Events from a Season 3/4 canon divergence where Na'Toth stayed on Babylon 5.
Relationships: Vir Cotto & Lennier & Na'Toth
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	You Can't Go Home Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DownToTheSea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownToTheSea/gifts).



"Do you regret not being on Narn?" asks Lennier over lunch. He doesn't add, _now that Narn is bombed_ , but Na'Toth is certain she can hear that in his voice.

"I don't know if I would have come out alive," says Na'Toth. "And there's too much to do here. I would have missed too much. I can't think I'd do it any other way."

"To be fair," Lennier points out, "if you had done it any other way, you would likely say the same thing."

They're having their usual end-of-week dinner together in the very expensive Fresh Aire restaurant, because Na'Toth has expensive tastes and Lennier thinks that appreciating fine cuisine is to admire the universe with your rarer-used senses. It's why he never orders Minbari food from them. It is an intensely religious experience for him. And, furthermore, now that Ambassador G'Kar has become Citizen G'Kar, only Lennier can afford to pick up the bill. So it's lucky for Na'Toth that Lennier doesn't mind shelling out for what amounts to a very fancy prayer. It's lucky for Lennier that Na'Toth doesn't think it's secretly pity.

It might be pity. For a Minbari, Lennier's surprisingly good at pretending otherwise.

" _I_ would have wanted to be on Minbar," adds Lennier, thoughtful, "if anything happened back home."

"Well," says Na'Toth pointedly. And she is always very blunt, so she has learned to soften slightly her phrasing, which she does now, so that Lennier doesn't sour quite so hard. "Judging by your Warrior Caste, book the flight in advance."

\--

After the experience with G'Kar, Vir's taken to being careful about boarding elevators, to check who's inside before he gets on. Too bad not everybody's careful with him. When the elevator opens at Grey 42, Na'Toth gets on before realising.

When she notices, surprise of surprises - she glares at him with only half her usual vitriol.

Four floors pass in icy awkwardness. Vir feels his belly complain. These uncomfortable situations always give him gas.

 _Grey 38_ , says the computer, but no one gets on. Just twenty more floors! Vir shifts his weight to his other leg, then back again. Nervous habit.

"I heard what you did on Minbar," says Na'Toth. "It shouldn't have been necessary. We don't _need_ your help." Except that the Narn refugees very clearly did, thinks Vir. Wisdom is knowing not to say that aloud. Na'Toth doesn't carry a weapon - that he knows of.

He couldn't say they'd been friends, before all this, but it's gotten so much worse with everything Londo's done, and Vir can tell no one about it, not even Lennier, and - and Na'Toth is still talking.

"I can't believe I had to hear it from Lennier and you wouldn't even tell me yourself," she says.

"Na'Toth," says Vir gently. "We, uh. We barely speak." They've never really understood each other. It had always been through Lennier, who liked both Vir and Na'Toth and refused to pick sides. Why should now be any different?

 _Grey 27_ , says the computer. No one gets on. Na'Toth doesn't get off.

Na'Toth snorts. "That was before I knew you were something more than every other useless lackey whose main excuse remains, 'my hands were tied, I couldn't do anything!'"

Vir still feels like his hands were still tied, though. He _didn't_ do enough. His moping almost distracts him from what Na'Toth has actually said. "So..." he begins. "So, you think I _am_ something more?"

"Don't let it get to your head," she snaps.

A beat. _Grey 21._

"Thank you," she says. "I mean, for doing what should have been done, for doing the right thing." She says it furtively, before the doors open, and people could hear.

"Thank you for doing the bare minimum?" Vir guesses. "Thank you for having basic decency?"

"Basic sentient decency isn't something you can depend on these days." Na'Toth is first off the elevator. Vir waits for the doors to close and exhales for what feels like the first time in long minutes.

\--

Lennier has to recruit the services of Tamran, a Minbari telepath. She isn't nearly powerful enough to tell where they're holding Vir just by thought-seek, but it's enough to walk her through Downbelow to gather the appropriate intelligence off wayward minds. "They're holding him in Green 49," she reports, "down the corridor and to the left."

He makes it there in what feels like hours but he calculates three minutes, fifteen seconds.

This is awful. First he comes across Marcus' broken body. That was bad enough to see a Ranger in such condition. And now it's worse - now it's Vir - who Lennier finds sat slumped forward in a dark room, his mind violated. Lennier is stricken and his heart sinks. All for what? A piece of intelligence?

Truly, Lennier wants to locate and beat the people that did this, and he's never resorted to violence, but he's skilled enough and they wouldn't expect it of him to look at him ... but that's not diplomatic. And it's more about his anger (which he must shelve) than about Vir's care (which takes priority).

He loops Vir's arm around his shoulder and shuffles them away. Vir is too light, he thinks. He's lost weight and Centauri bones aren't anywhere near the density of Minbari. That's not a new thing; Vir hasn't been eating well - hasn't been sleeping well either, probably. It helps to concentrate on these facts to distract himself from his anger.

Ambassador Mollari appears around the corner. He begins, a finger held aloft, "Ah - yes, I was just about to -"

"Oh, I think you've done enough," snaps Lennier coldly. He clears his throat and murmurs a more polite, "Ambassador." But he also tucks Vir closer to himself.

Mollari doesn't offer a rebuke. Good, thinks Lennier, who doesn't have time to be chastened like a child.

\--

"How was the funeral?" asks Vir softly.

"Dismal," says Na'Toth. It was good to go. It's better to be back. She shrugs, not because she doesn't care, but because there isn't anything good to say. "The hope that we had when Narn was freed has dampened somewhat... Narn needs a lot of rebuilding. It'll never be the same," she says.

"It will," insists Lennier. "Maybe not in _your_ lifetime." He bows low, with his hand over his heart, and says a phrase in Minbari. Na'Toth's heard it before. You don't hang around one this often and not pick up a little Minbari, and the war's been rough on many - Lennier's said this particular phrase often. _May they pass swiftly unto the stars_ , it means.

She smiles stiffly. "Thanks."

Truly, she buried her siblings, mother, and grandmother awhile ago, when the homeworld was bombarded. But Narn's recent collective funerary celebrations have helped close a chapter on her life. And it means a lot to her that they're there to meet her at Passenger Arrivals. More than she's willing to say.

"Well," she says instead. "That's that. Now we're all alike, aren't we."

Technically, Vir's family is still alive, but they never speak - Vir is the disappointment, though he's come to realise he doesn't need their approval anymore. Lennier's family died in the Earth-Minbari war, and those that didn't died in the recent civil conflict. And Na'Toth - well. Most people have been identified and buried. Some will always be missing. They never did find her grandmother.

Vir smiles shyly. "I-I never had a sister," he says, "but if I did, I'd want her to be like you."

"I _did_ have a sister," says Lennier, "and luckily, you are a lot like she was."

Na'Toth finds herself uneasy with emotion, somewhere between uncomfortable and greedily pleased. "Well," she says again. She fights against a grin but loses. "Don't go expecting me to remember birthdays."


End file.
